Introduction
How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.
—Henry David ThoreauYou may be reading the Second Edition of Case Studies in Communication Sciences and
Disorders because your professor required it for an introductory course. Perhaps you are “testing
the waters” to see if this discipline is worthy of professional commitment. This book may also be
required for an upper-level capstone course, or several chapters may have been assigned for a grad-
uate course. You may be in practicum and are reading it to prepare for your first patient. Regardless
of your academic and clinical situation, this book is designed to be informative, relevant, and, most
importantly, interesting. The discipline of communication sciences and disorders is exciting, and
this book is intended to ref lect the awe, wonder, and complexities of human communication, as
well as the myriad disorders, deficits, diseases, and disabilities that can lay waste to it.
The chapters in this book address the major communication disorders you are likely to see as
clinicians. Each chapter provides an overview of a communication disorder with an emphasis on
etiology, diagnosis, and treatment. Although theories are addressed in these sections, the academic
reviews are intended to be clinically relevant. These reviews are similar to those found in other
books on communication sciences and disorders, but the case studies in each chapter depart from
the typical college textbooks you may read. The Second Edition of Case Studies in Communication
Sciences and Disorders includes new information and updated sources and references to ref lect the
advancement of knowledge since the publication of the First Edition.
During the development process for this book, the original publisher and I explored several
ways of writing the case studies. They could have been written in sterile clinical terminology,
similar to that of medical and educational reports, or in only one style and with little literary varia-
tion. However, to make the case studies ref lect true clinical practice, we decided to write them in
several styles and include detailed patient histories. These histories, including the events leading
to the patients’ communication disorders, are a fundamental aspect of clinical practice, and they
give humanity and depth to the patient–clinician relationship. Clinicians evaluate and treat people,
not simply their communication disorders, and the case studies provided here ref lect that reality.
The cases in this book are based on my 40 years of clinical, academic, and research experi-
ence. For confidentiality reasons, and to preserve the privacy of these patients and their families,
identifying information has been changed. Literary license has also been taken for descriptive and
readability purposes, and some case studies are composites for educational and illustrative reasons.
However, all cases reported in this book are based on factual events and real people. I believe this
book is both substantive and readable, and provides important and meaningful academic and
clinical information. At least those were my goals in writing it.
—Dennis C. Tanner, PhD